Questions tagged [software-development]
This tag is for questions about software development projects, as opposed to questions about construction projects, or some other field that doesn't involve software.
406
questions
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What are the priority quality practices?
I have recently joined a small software development team that has 1 product with multiple external customers. There is no specific project management methodology or framework being used, so ...
- 911
0
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2
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94
views
BDD Gherkin definition of un-gherkin-like work
We are dealing with the split of work which, in the old process, would have all been one big task; Now, (under Scrum) that work is split into stories and refined. We are using BDD to define those ...
- 905
2
votes
2
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495
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OKRs as a new Waterfall
I'm a software developer and I don't have deep knowledge of the best practices around Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), so I base my question mostly on how they are used in my company.
Every quarter ...
- 123
3
votes
1
answer
195
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CR Rejection / Approval based on the Technical Feasibility
I have a concern with regards to CR rejection / approval process.
A client presents his / her requirement to the PM and PM asks them to raise a change request, but once the requirement is analyzed, ...
- 241
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134
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Software Developer gathering requirements, Department Managers providing input and discouraging input from Users
I am finding myself in an awkward position. I am a Developer and I have been assigned the Development work for a Project that will convert a paper workflow to an electronic workflow. The small ...
- 101
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4
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370
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Sprint Bouncer role
Our engineering team uses agile scrum and we are finally growing enough to be able to delegate more scrum roles to more members, including to some of the engineers like myself.
One role we're ...
- 121
2
votes
1
answer
92
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How to estimate the value of software for a control system?
Control systems are like computers, but sometimes less so. For the current discussion, it can be assumed that some custom effort maybe needed to make the same code work on different platforms.
With ...
- 121
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3
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755
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Indicator of achievements for performance goals
This is the first time I've been asked to give any "indication of achievement" following the (S.M.A.R.T. methodology) with predefined goals.
Below are the predefined goals:
Ensure a Secure Platform ...
- 19
2
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2
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319
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Can't do 'vertical'
I've been asked what a team should do when the nature of the project precludes vertical slices in their deliverable stories.
The definition of 'Incremental Development' is provided here:
https://www....
- 905
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3
answers
120
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Handling architectural problems down the line
What do you do when you get X months into a project which is using Scrum and either a story, a developer, a review or planning session makes it clear that a serious architectural problem is evident, ...
- 905
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120
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Estimating and Project budgets
I'd be interested to hear how you manage dealing with project budgets when having to provide a fixed cost up front for the customer ahead of starting the work?
For context, and without giving too ...
- 316
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369
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Handling bugs in Kanban (using JIRA)
When we have features, we usually break them down to tasks that take about 1-2 days.
Usually our dev tasks are not ready for QA as soon as a developer finishes developing them, but only after the ...
- 123
0
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2
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115
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When is using a Kanban(-like) board with paper tickets okay?
At some point our project manager (PM) switched to a Kanban-like board (we have "Open", "In progress", "Verification", "Feedback", "Analysis" and "Test" fields on the board; our project follows (I ...
- 109
0
votes
1
answer
81
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How to create a schedule for a UX process?
I started to work on a new project ( software development) an my boss asked me: "what are the next steps? I need a schedule!"
We're at the beginning, doing some user tests and researches about the ux ...
- 103
3
votes
4
answers
2k
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Should I have user stories dealing with the case where user is not authenticated?
In my software, a lot of services expect user to be authenticated before performing.
In positive scenarios, I have this kind of context:
Given I am authenticated
When I create meeting X
Then ...
- 271
2
votes
4
answers
350
views
Is software development becoming some sort of anarchic system around the world?
In the last 10 years with the spread of Agile, I've seen developers taking more and more responsibility in the make of the software. Usually the implementation decisions are a team job and not anymore ...
- 149
3
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4
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660
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How to finance non-programming activities when clients don't want to pay for these activities?
On one hand, software development involves a lot of non-programming activities like requirements gathering (including analysis), estimating, planning, testing, tracking work, change request management,...
- 31
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237
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What is the best requirements format for tenders
Large organisations often ousource software projects. For this purpose they create tender documents, which are used by software companies to make a bid.
Tender documents must specify requirements so ...
- 484
4
votes
4
answers
1k
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How should a Scrum Master handle high cycle times from individuals on a team?
As a Scrum Master / Agile Coach, what is the correct approach for dealing with Engineers in a team who take longer than the rest of the team to complete their tasks.
Since we are using Kanban we aim ...
- 2,529
0
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1
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147
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High level way to explain programming concepts to my boss [closed]
My new boss has a little programming knowledge but not much, he is not technology illiterate but I'm looking for a few suggestions on how to explain programming concepts to him at a high level. Maybe ...
- 101
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173
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How to avoid recurring questions and contradictions about same or related problems?
The questions
How can we avoid ending up with contradicting requirements raised from the users? We'd appreciate process improvement suggestions that'd fit our limited resources.
Disclaimer
I haven ...
- 123
0
votes
1
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74
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software process model for one person with requirments well defined upfront
a project developed by just one person that have all the requirements well defined upfront which is the best process model for a cms project? Im in doubt between agile or waterfall. I read that ...
- 3
11
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3
answers
695
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If you already release continuously, what are the benefits of a Scrum Sprint of constant length?
Sprint: an arbitrary length of time over which you implement and release software features.
From what I've read here and other places, it seems that the benefits of a Scrum sprint are that at the end ...
- 233
3
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4
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279
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Ensuring team motivation and project progress in a highly complex software project
Our development team is currently facing the problem that the complexity of our software project is draining their motivation/enthusiasm/...
Since a few weeks they constantly struggle with pondering ...
6
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5
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1k
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Where do requirements end and design begin?
I imagine this question has been asked in various forms previously but I couldn't locate a specific answer after searching around.
I am currently working in an independent oversight role on an ...
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5
answers
2k
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Can scrum master interrupt team member during daily Scrum?
We are a small team using Daily Scrum meetings to track progress of our mobile app development work. The developers are of varying experience range from 2+ years up to 9 years, and with different ...
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vote
4
answers
657
views
How can we keep track of changes to translations within our project?
I work in a game development company with around 100 employees. Every one of them can add text for translating. There is a lot of text to translate, so keeping track of all the text is problematic. ...
- 111
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2
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2k
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Managing multiple agile projects in a small software house
Background
I'm a junior project manager in a small software house with not much experience on our market. My aim is to organise work teams work in most efficient way, work out sustainable processes, ...
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4
votes
4
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316
views
Is it unrealistic to develop a software project and get reliability not just by what you see on screen?
In the software industry, not in all cases but true for many, you usually report to a manager who has no advanced knowledge about the underlying technology used in a software project.
Usually this ...
2
votes
2
answers
275
views
Feasability report and the kickoff meeting
Is feasability study related to kick off meeting?
My understanding is that the feasability study is done before the contracts are signed to ensure that the project is 'feasible'.
But my question is ...
- 131
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223
views
Do non-labour costs involve project overheads?
I'm completing some coursework for my Software Project Management university module (studying Computer Science). We have to assemble a bid for a hypothetical software development project.
I have ...
- 101
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1
answer
118
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Methodology for Deciding Between Building on Existing Code or Starting New
This is a question about assessing the cost/benefit or ROI of a prospective project.
I'm working in 6-8 old years software project. It has a lot of issues and also failures plus some failed people on ...
- 267
10
votes
1
answer
853
views
Assigning features to teams rather than assigning front-end or back-end work?
The system that i work on has a front-end and a back-end. At the moment, my team is working on the UI tasks and other team is working on the back-end tasks. There is also another team which handles ...
- 203
3
votes
2
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222
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How can I produce more reliable estimates for technology refresh projects?
After running a few projects that refresh technology rather than add functionality, I've noticed a few recurring themes:
Technology refresh projects are more likely to go over budget/schedule; ...
- 289
8
votes
4
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453
views
Should developers be talking to users during Story planning / refinement?
When you have a Product Owner who is less technical, can developers be brought into discovery with users and stakeholders?
e.g. A new project is underway and the PO is doing discovery, creating epics,...
- 2,529
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3
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7k
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Example epics for an mobile game
I want to define epics for the following project: "a mobile application which makes you discover a city through a detective game".
The game basically needs to display your position on a map to get ...
- 163
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119
views
How to show planned project approach to the client?
I've came to a situation where the client asks me the next two things:
Give me your project plan of how you would approach this project to make sure I have a result at the end of a specific month.
...
- 111
2
votes
2
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103
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Is it good idea to divide the modules to different developers? considering that they are freelancers
We have a project but we have very short period of time vs the requirements. We have only 2 developers and 1 designer. What we are thinking is to hire freelancers to help us on different modules and ...
- 121
2
votes
2
answers
195
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Does the act of measuring progress also slow progress?
I recently read an article on Heisenberg developers. In a nutshell, the author is arguing that the act of measuring progress has the effect of slowing progress.
Does this principle have an official ...
- 121
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1
answer
43
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Different user can access different feature [closed]
I have already developed website in nodejs and MySQL
Now my client wants to add payment functionality. We have lots of features in the website like:-
1) Copy
2) Save
3) Delete
4) Groups
5) ...
- 101
0
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3
answers
266
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Dealing with unrealistic performance expectations [closed]
What facts and sources can I use to convince a manager I'm currently working with that rewriting a project of ~20'000 lines of code in a month is a completely unrealistic plan, and that writing ~5'000 ...
- 119
2
votes
6
answers
301
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How do you handle scheduling with developers who always come up with new cases in specifications?
We are a small mobile development team (6 developers, 3 QA, 1 team leader). We're a little new to agile, and are just learning the ropes/making mistakes as we go. The whole team reports to a project ...
- 21
2
votes
2
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178
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What are the effects of rotating of professionals among different projects during software development?
Currently, I am performing a research focused on the effects of rotation in software development.
So, I'm interested in understand how developers, software engineers, testers, that is, all ...
8
votes
5
answers
1k
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How can we speed up code reviews without sacrificing thoroughness of the code reviews?
At our workplace, we use Agile Scrum method. However, we don't really follow it religiously.
But, we do very thorough code reviews. The problem with code reviews is that it's takes a while to ...
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183
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Should project management software be comprised of the technologies the developers use?
As owner of and project manager for a medium (~20 devs) Rails shop, I find myself constantly sifting through a dozen tabs trying to gauge any given project's current status. My team embraces ...
1
vote
1
answer
82
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How to document and manage activity that is managed by different procedures from different categories (CMMI)?
CMMI has 4 categories of process areas in staged representation, those categories are:
process management
project management
engineering
support
All the CMMI process areas are categorized in these 4 ...
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3
votes
5
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268
views
How do I encourage self-learning of Git?
Recently my team transitioned from Perforce to Git. As part of the transition, the developers responsible for the transition wrote documentation and provided links to interactive tutorials to help ...
- 133
2
votes
5
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498
views
How to ensure developers don't sneak in code not part of requirements?
Other than than code reviews by another developer and by trusting your developers won't do anything nefarious or stupid, is there any way to ensure that when you release a build to production or even ...
- 417
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3
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264
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Boss is making me liable for developers actions
As an agile project manager, I am currently working with one sub contractor, the problem that I am currently facing is that he is just not pulling his weight with not only doing the work but also ...
- 3,882
2
votes
1
answer
102
views
Mapping value stream for a feature suggestion to working software process
I'm trying to get a gist of Value Stream Mapping and how to apply it to a suggestion to working software process that we have.
Since we are developing products, and don't do client work, there's no ...
- 349